Mobile Phone News:

You may remember, last week, that I did this post about urban myths that’ve got mobile phones in ‘em. And you may remember that in that story, was a bit about the hoax claim that you could cook eggs with two mobile phones.

Well, there’s a new and improved version of the same old rubbish this week, as four videos have popped up supposedly showing popcorn being cooked by mobile phones.

Having watched the videos (and you can see one for yourself, at the end of this post), even I have to concede that as hoaxes go, it’s a convincingly done one, which is probably why so many people are jumping round, going, “Oh noes! The mobile phones will fry my brains!”

There’s one tiny complication to that, though.

Those videos aren’t physically possible.

Just the same as the egg story, where the mobile phones couldn’t produce enough energy to cook (or even warm) the egg, the phones could not, I repeat, NOT generate enough heat to make popcorn go, erm, pop. I did some checking as to what temperature popcorn actually does go pop at, and… well, it’s quite high. 180ºC, in fact, whereas water boils at 100ºC, as you know.

That’s really quite hot.

Put it another way, you mobile phone would have to be set to gas mark 4, to cook popcorn. Now, I know people will say about it being microwaves, but once again, your phone simply CAN’T generate that much power. A microwave running at 800W will take a few minutes to make the popcorn pop, but 4 mobile phones, running at a combined power of about 8W (a hundredth the output of the microwave) will make ‘em pop in about the same length of time?

Erm, no, I don’t think so, do you? Besides, if they did generate that much power, that much heat, they would LITERALLY fry your brains. And your hand, and all your skin on your face and arm. Never mind long term health risks (which I’m not convinced exist at all), a phone that could cook popcorn like these purport to would actually melt your arm and your face right off!

So, if it’s not real (and The Guardian tried to replicate and couldn’t, which is pretty damning), what is it? What’s it for? Could it be viral marketing? And if so, who by? Surely not a mobile phone maker (”I’ve got a great idea, lads, let’s make an advert that tells people our phones will kill them!”)? Maybe a popcorn maker?

I say, let’s not forget the stupid lengths people will go to for a laugh. Who’s to say there’s not someone sitting there, sniggering now, because more than three people believed it. And remember, never underestimate the power of human nature to do something utterly stupid and pointless!

And for everyone who’s been waiting here’s one of the videos in action:

Do you agree with Technical Markus that there’s no way this is physically possible? Or do you think mobile phones really are dangerous enough to do that? Either way, leave us a comment and have your say!